Background from the first article in this series:

Thousands of home-based health care providers have been forced into a union because they receive assistance from the state while they take care of loved ones who are disabled. The Service Employees International Union receives close to $6 million annually in forced dues from this abusive arrangement. 

House Bill 4003 would end this injustice by clarifying that Michiganders who care for relatives in their own homes are not government employees, and hence are not appropriate targets for government unions. That bill has passed the House but is stuck in the Senate. While we wait for the Senate to act, the SEIU continues to siphon money that was meant to help families.

Here's one example of where that money might be going, drawn from the SEIU's 2010 LM-2 report.

Change.org is an e-petition website that allows users to draft and solicit signatures over the Internet. Unlike many other beneficiaries of Service Employees International Union contributions, Change.org is not explicitly ideological. The politics that are promoted there are more scattershot. One of the victories that Change.org claims is persuading Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to support women being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, something that should appeal to a fairly wide range of Americans. Other petitions that have been promoted include a call for President Obama to sign an executive order adding "LGBT workplace protections" to American jobs, and a call for the Girl Scouts to make their cookies "rainforest safe."

Change.org was the recipient of two payments totaling $38,500 from the SEIU. Of this, $22,500 was described as political, and $16,000 was considered an organizing expense. The SEIU's support of Change.org, and its rationales, illustrates the extent to which SEIU has become politicized. Even in pursuing new members and organizing new workplaces, a core function of a labor union, SEIU's instincts are often to ally themselves with a promoter of political causes.

Tomorrow: SEIU Healthcare.

Previously:

Clean Economy Development Center

Change That Works

Applied Research Center

Brave New Foundation

The Atlas Project

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